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What did it mean for portrait images to generate recognition of early modern individuals as saints? Did images make sainthood visible through a person's particularities or their conformity to perfect models? To be recognisable as an historical individual was not necessarily compatible with being recognised as a saint, either officially by Rome, or experientially by devotees. Early images of Quito's most prominent candidate for sainthood, Mariana de Jesús Paredes y Flores (1618–1645), throw into sharp relief the pressure that posthumous candidacy for sainthood brought to bear on portrait images, especially of women. Mariana's imagery reconfigures the relationship among visibility, individuality and recognition that posed a common problem for aspiring saints' portraits. Far from being transparent post-Tridentine propaganda, Mariana's early iconography works against the grain of the portrait genre, creatively addressing the tensions between individual likeness and conformity to perfect models, and between concealing sainthood and making it visible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ecstasy of St. Teresa is arguably the most controversial work created by the Roman Baroque artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680). The debate surrounding the statue centers on the question: did the artist's radically non-traditional depiction of Teresa's transverberation transgress the boundaries of decorum as understood by seventeenth-century Catholicism? This debate has lasted for many years and is likely to endure for many more to come, for, as the mass of, at times, contradictory documentation leads us to conclude, the line of decorum that Bernini did, or did not, cross would seem to resist any firm pinpointing, that is was, indeed, fluid and subjective, even when seen through seventeenth-century eyes. The aim of this article is not to deny the subjective fluidity of that line of decorum, but rather to propose that it was perhaps far less fluid and subjective than some examiners of the issue today seem inclined to believe. At the same time, and perhaps more importantly, its aim is also to disabuse the staunch defenders of Bernini's decorum of the belief that no matter where that line of decorum might have been located in the seventeenth century, there cannot possibly be any reasonable grounds for suggesting that Bernini may have crossed it. Defenses of Bernini's decorum rest on three claims: (1) Bernini faithfully followed the literal description of Teresa's transverberation as described by the saint herself; (2) the Church understood that mystical union often entailed erotic elements and thus had no problem with religious art depicting that reality; and (3) since there is no nudity in Bernini's statue, it cannot be accused of violating decorum. Through detailed analysis of Roman Catholic catechetical teaching (from Augustine to Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino), Teresa's writings and other primary texts relating to the saint's transverberation, and an extremely close examination of the statue itself, this article argues that none of these defenses is completely accurate and thus unassailable in its conclusion, while, however, not claiming to resolve the decorum debate once and for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Early Christian period, the practice of depicting Christ's chest stigma on the right-hand side of his upper torso was an established component of stigmata iconography. Thereafter, this tradition was consistently followed in painted images of stigmatic saints—most notably in representations of St Francis of Assisi. St Catherine of Siena (1357–80) also bore the stigmata, and when her chest stigma was included in her portraits the conventional pictorial tradition continued and artists placed the wound on the right side of her chest. Plautilla Nelli (1524–88), a Dominican prioress and painter in Florence, however, introduced a new iconography. Contrary to all visual precedents, she painted several small works depicting Catherine with a bloody chest stigma on her left-hand side. The suggestion offered here is that Nelli's unorthodox and original iconography was indebted not to the visual tradition but to two near-contemporary textual sources for Catherine's stigmatization. Raymond of Capua's Legenda maior and Thommaso Caffarini's Libellus de supplemento report Catherine's own account of her imprinting in which she testifies that the ray to her chest came to her left side, the side of her heart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article retraces the influence of the wooden reliquary dedicated to the Christian saint sainte Ursule entitled "Châsse de sainte Ursule" which contains paintings by 15th century German painter Hans Memling and is conserved at the Hôpital Saint-Jean in Bruges, Belgium. Focus is given to its reputation outside of Bruges from 1604 to 1847 and the role of Belgian painter and poet Carel Van Mander and Belgian sculptor Guillaume Geefs. Mander's mention of the reliquary in his work "Schilder-Boeck" published in 1604, the reproduction of the reliquary's paintings starting in the 19th century, and the sepulchral monument, or cenotaph, entitled "Cénotaphe de saint Hubert" created by Geefs and commissioned by Léopold I, King of the Belgians, in 1844 are discussed.

The article discusses the pictorial representation of medieval Saint Humility of Faenza (Rosanese Negusanti), the founder of the female order of the Vallombrosans, during the Middle Ages. It provides a biographical outline of the life of this 13th-century woman religious, notes her characterization by contemporaries as possessing miraculous powers, and relates attempts to advocate for her canonization. The images of her discussed in detail include a polyptych designed for Vallombrosan convent of San Giovanni Evangelista by Italian painter Pietro Lorenzetti, which was later transferred to the convent of San Salvi, as well as several no longer extant paintings described in Italian manuscripts from the 16th through 18th centuries.

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This article investigates frontispiece images of saints, including portraits of would-be saints, published in saints' and would-be-saints' Vite in post-Tridentine Naples. It argues that these images, together with their accompanying texts, form part of the manufacturing of the new faces of sanctity of Catholic Reform, with specifically local (Neapolitan) overtones. Frontispiece images of saints operated less as passive adornment of the lives they accompany, than as re-routings of the authority of sanctity in relation to specific-interest groups within Naples, such as enclosed convents. The city of Naples itself is variously figured in these images, but emerges as a perhaps increasingly significant force. Thus, frontispiece depictions of saints participated in the staging of a new Naples as a pious city in special relation to pious reader–inhabitants. The portrait frontispieces accompanying the Vite of female would-be saints depart significantly from the textual lives, which emphasize pain-filled piety rather than ecstatic transports. It is suggested here that they thus evoked both for ecclesiastical authorities overseeing the processes of canonization and for their female devout readers an ideal of modern female religious devotion not as transgressive and miraculous, but as respectable and everyday. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present article the phenomenon of St. Lucy is being discussed. Providences to the saints in the context of sensory disability (blindness) are made. Sainthood as the beginning of historic as well as philosophical parts of the phenomenon is overlooked. Popularity of the saints as well as festivals and traditions of them are revealed. It is aimed at explaining the phenomenon of the saints to believers. The most famous works of the sculptors and painters of 13th-18th centuries that depict St. Lucy are systemized and presented in the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music was an important subject in the art of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) and Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898), and the inclusion of portative and positive organs is a key to understanding the Pre-Raphaelites' changing relationship with medieval and Renaissance art. Engravings from Bonnard's Costumes Historiques (1829), for example, were copied and re-emerge in their works. The organ was traditionally associated with images of female sanctity, especially St. Cecilia. A comparison of the renderings of St. Cecilia legend in Rossetti's wood engraving (1857) and Burne-Jones's series, Le Chant d'Amour (1863-1877) shows how the sacred origins of the composition are subverted, turning them into sensual images. This transition is related to the interest in Venetian art which develops in paintings by Rossetti and Burne-Jones in the later 1850s. Walter Pater's criticism of Giorgione sheds light on Burne-Jones's approach to musical subject, and places the art of these Pre-Raphaelites in a wider Victorian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cecilia, the Christian martyr and later patron saint of music, embodies Christian virtuousness (in Latin virtus) and this her attribute marked her depictions right up to the early modern age. An abundance of Cecilia portrayals produced between the 15th and 17th centuries document changes in approaches to her significance. Among them exceptionally interesting is the one by the Roman artist Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1652/53), which offers an opportunity for an analysis of the process of artistic secularization in the early modern age. While in earlier paintings, musical symbols of Cecilia are merely an additional attribute of the saint supporting her spiritual virtuousness, in her later portraits as a musician she loses her halo. Her attributes of power, originally fixed in a moralistic and religious manner, are now redefined as those of a secular artist. This change from virtus to virtuosity in her portrayals is parallel to changes which occurred in music around and after 1600. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Saint Cecilia's iconic status as patron saint of music is universal, although she is principally associated with Rome, where her basilica was founded in the fifth century. The revival of her cult in the seventeenth century resulted in renewed interest on the part of poets, musicians, and painters, many of whom were in the Roman orbit. After reviewing her legend (based on the thirteenth-century Golden Legend and scenes from her life depicted in the early fourteenth century) and describing her relationship to music explored are connections between Saint Cecilia and Florence, where the Accademia degli Elevati adopted her as patron at the time of its founding in 1607. Under Medici rule, Florence was dominated by male saints; but with the renewed interest in the cult of Cecilia, her image began to proliferate among Florentine artists (Artemisia Gentileschi and Carlo Dolci) and specifically for female Medici patrons (the archduchesses Maria Maddalena and Vittoria della Rovere). The paper highlights a special connection between Saint Cecilia and a young Florentine virtuosa singer Arcangela Paladini (d.1622), who may have been the model for one of Artemisia's paintings of the virgin martyr. Through the examination of these representations and verbal descriptions, traced is Cecilia's transformation from virginin ecstasy (established principally by Raphael's 1513/14 painting) to the allegorical figure (celebrated by seventeenthcentury artists) of La Musica herself - from exalted saint to inspirational muse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Acta Historiae Artis Slovenica is the property of Scientific Research Centre of Slovenian Academy of Sciences & Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)